Tense Logic

And the men of Ai struck and killed about thirty-six of their men, and pursued them from the gate as far as Shebarim and struck them on the mountainside; and the hearts of the people melted and became like water.  Joshua 7:5  NASB

Struck and killed – You know the story.  Joshua sends out his army to defeat Ai, believing that God is on his side.  But they are defeated.  Thirty-six die.  The defeat causes a national panic.  Why did God allow this?  The answer is revealed in the investigation of Achem.  His sin is the cause of this catastrophe.  Joshua deals with it—harshly.  Capital execution.  End of story, right?

Not quite.

Let’s set aside the legal ramifications here and concentrate on the hidden grammar.  There are two things to notice in the first few words.  The first is the odd spelling of the word which means “six”  in the construction “about thirty-six.”  In Hebrew the number is the combination of “thirty” and “six” (שְׁלשִׁ֚ים וְשִׁשָּׁה֙), but “six” is spelled here with an added (and unnecessary) הַ.  Why?  No explanation comes to mind, but there must be one. 

The second oddity is the construction itself (כִּשְׁלשִׁ֚ים וְשִׁשָּׁה֙).  What does it mean to say, “about thirty-six.”  Thirty-six is a specific number.  How can there be “about” thirty-six?  There are either thirty-six or there aren’t thirty-six.  This is not like “about a dozen.”  No one says, “There were about one hundred and twenty-two people there.”  The rabbis noticed this peculiarity and took pains to try to explain it (not altogether successfully, I might add). 

But it is the third grammatical issue I wish to concentrate on.  Notice the syntax of the Hebrew:

וַיַּכּ֨וּ מֵהֶ֜ם אַנְשֵׁ֣י הָעַ֗י כִּשְׁלשִׁ֚ים וְשִׁשָּׁה֙

Literally, this is “and smote to kill to them the men of Ai about thirty-six men.”  Of course, in translation we rearrange the syntax so that the subject comes before the verb followed by the direct object.  This is is not the way Hebrew works.  In fact, almost always the verb comes before the subject—and in this case the subject (actors) come after the object (those killed).

Think about the implications here—and this is only a suggestion!  Imagine a world where you don’t know that meaning of the act until after the action is finished.  The verb tells us only “they smote to kill.”  It doesn’t tell us who acted or who was acted upon.  We have to wait to find out.  First we discover who was acted upon and only at the end of the phrase do we learn who the actors are.  The temporal sequence of the statement doesn’t fit our way of viewing time nor does it focus on our dominant position of the actor(s).  In our world, the Western world, what matters is who did the deed.  But in the Hebraic world what matters is what was done.  The actors are revealed much later.  As a Hebrew reader, the text forces you to wait until the end to know who was involved in what actually happened.  This reminds me of Maimonides’ famous description of Hebrew prophecy—the “rear view mirror” event—after it happens you will know what it was.

Ask yourself how your worldview would change if you were required to wait until the sentence is finished before you could evaluate its meaning, if you had to wait until the end of the story to know what the beginning meant.  I have often written that God views His creation from its end point, not its beginning.  He always starts what He finishes.  What would your life be like if you had that perspective, if you withheld understanding until it was done?  What do you suppose the deep grammar of Hebrew is trying to teach you?

Topical Index:  nākâ, to strike down, about, thirty-six, syntax, Joshua 7:5